In-house wiki

[JunO]

A couple years ago, I suggested to our managing editor that I'd like to revamp our stylebook. Great idea, but as it goes these days, we all had more and more duties dumped on us and the stylebook got pushed completely off the goals list.

So now I've proposed instead an in-house wiki, for not just a style guide, but also a reference guide for our coverage area that our editors and reporters can use and contribute to. We've lost some long-time people in the last several years, and a lot of institutional knowledge with them. The young reporters that have replaced them have struggled with learning it on their own, so I'm imagining the wiki as a place to "dump" that information -- our style, community info, who are the best sources to call in certain situations, how-tos on design or photography, etc.

Has anyone done anything like this? Got any tips or ideas to share? Thanks.

[Matthew Crowley]

Hi:

This sounds like a good idea, but I’d argue that there still has to be someone to vet and verify the entries, in other words an administrator. Such a person could also help make sure there's consensus among managers on matters of style.

It's true that as duties pile up, maintaining such as file (which would be necessary to ensure consistency and timeliness) gets harder. But such a wiki file would enable people from all desks and overlapping specialties to find answers quickly. It could also help ensure consistency as facts change.

m.c.

[chrisser32]

I know someone in another corporate communications department who implemented a departmental wiki. It included more than just a style guide -- employee photos and bios, department policies & procedures, a glossary, a "What's new" section, helpful style sheets and guidelines, plus much more. I asked how they went about doing it, and he shared the following:

- We did have help from IT, though it was a bit of a back-door project. We did a few things on our own.

- Most of the style guide material already existed in Word, and we had a temp enter the info into the Wiki.

- The future direction that our company seems to be looking at for this type of thing is Sharepoint, not MediaWiki, so at some point down the road we may have to migrate there.

Their Wiki is still going strong.

[JunO]

I've finally been able to get our in-house wiki started. It's accessible only in-house, but I (quickly) put together a page to show some screen shots: http://www.geocities.com/junogle/hdnwiki.html

[mtbarrow]

I'm considering starting one here at my paper for the same reasons...would anyone who has been involved with one be willing to chat with me about how everything went?

[jgaitan]

Hi there,

I'm in the midst of implementing a wiki for my newsroom.

Though IT agreed that it was a good idea and they want to do it, they've been swamped and haven't had time to install and set up a wiki for us. So I finally gave up waiting and set one up on my personal server (with password protection). I used Tikiwiki because it was easy to install and very customizable.

Anyway, I would be happy to talk about it with anyone who wants to know more.


--Jessica

[JunO]

Hi Jessica
Good for you for getting the ball rolling on your own!

I've added quite a bit to our wiki since I first posted the screen shots. The reporters are using it somewhat. For example, I've added a couple pages with ideas for a couple of feature series we have, and they will update that as necessary, but as far as creating new entries, I seem to be the only one.

It's frustrating, because I continually hear them asking each other things that could be put there — contact information for sources, background on ongoing stories, etc. If it's something that one person has most of the knowledge on, and that person is out that day, we end up on a long search through our very spotty online archive or sneaking into their desks for notes.

Got any tips on getting the rest of the staff to use it? Have you had any problems we can brainstorm on?

[jgaitan]

That's actually the part I'm starting to embark on -- demonstrating the wiki's usefulness and getting people on board.

This is my strategy: I started talking about it with my fellow copy editors and the sports guys a few months ago. I don't think there will be any problem at all getting the copy editors to use it. A couple of the sports guys will depend on it daily as soon as we have it set up with the information they need, because they're always forgetting how to do certain technical things.

I've started populating it with some basic reference info that the reporters and copy editors need a lot, like the links to the state lottery pages (copy desk) and the scanner codes the police use (reporters and copy desk), who has what beat (everyone), common web sites we use (reporters and copy desk), and so on.

My next step will be to start showing it to reporters, brainstorm with them what they'd like to see up there, and find one or two of them willing to help putting info up. I know at least a couple of reporters who are technically savvy enough to see the utility of the wiki, and who will actively use it and add to it. The rest, I'm not sure, but I think I can at least get them to refer to it, if not add to it.

I know I will probably end up being the main person putting material up. But I figure if I can cultivate a core group of people, ideally one or two in each department, then that will be enough to get some momentum going.

The most important part to me is to have the reference material there, and to get people to refer to it. My goal is to reduce errors, and reduce the time we spend looking for information, and the number of times we have to start from scratch looking for the answer to a perennial question. Also, as you pointed out, as much as possible, I want to destroy the only-one-person-knows-that syndrome.

And we're about to hire a new person, so having all of this stuff in one place will make that person's transition so much easier.

Oh, and thank you, JunO -- your wiki screenshot is one of the things I show people to get them thinking about what could be on our wiki.

--Jessica

[JunO]

Those are exactly the reasons I wanted to start one, too. I think what I'm running into is that we have a very small newsroom staff (14 — that includes news, sports, photo and editors), so there's the "one-more-thing-I-have-to-do?" syndrome. It's kind of the same thing I'm getting trying to get people to use Twitter, or my ME encouraging us to blog.

I'm glad the screen shots were a help. Maybe I'll see if I can get some updated shots soon.

[jgaitan]

Wow, yeah, I see what you mean. In that case, maybe you can try to just cultivate one or two other people in the newsroom to help you put up information?

One thing I've done is ask people to just e-mail me the info and I'll put it up. I don't know why, but some people feel it's too much effort or too intimidating to update the wiki, and yet they are willing to type up the info and e-mail it to me.

(Also, I meant to say your collection of wiki screenshots has helped me -- the board doesn't seem to let me edit my post.)

Here are some other resources I've found on internal wikis:
Here's a list of ideas of what to include (from a college paper, but most of it is still relevant): http://seanblanda.com/blog/college-medi ... pers-wiki/
And a stylebook for an online publication (SourceWatch), done using a wiki: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... l_of_Style
Here's the Rochester, Minn., Post-Bulletin's very basic wiki stylebook: https://sandbox.wikispaces.com/PB+StyleBook
Other papers using an internal wiki are The Columbus Dispatch [ http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/conferen ... erwiki.pdf ], The News&Observer [ http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/conferen ... bswiki.pdf ] and The St. Louis Post-Dispatch [ http://www.ibiblio.org/slanews/conferen ... rswiki.pdf ]. (Source: http://wikijournalism.pbworks.com/Wiki+ ... +in+action )

[mtbarrow]

Thanks for the links and sharing your experience -- I'd come across some of them, but having all the background will help me move this process along. I think public relations is gonna be a big part of this...getting ornery reporters to be willing to update the pages and not feel like it's a burden. I think the copy desk will be the easiest part, because we spend an inordinate amount of time looking for things and duplicating efforts and everyone knows it.

I also have only used TWiki back in college, so I don't know the major differences (or cost?) of the different platforms. I suppose our IT people would know.

[jgaitan]

This Web site lets you compare wiki features, costs, etc.:
http://www.wikimatrix.org/

If you're going to do this internally, then yes, you should check with IT as to what would be best. They may have already set one up for another department.

When approaching IT, I've found the key is to present as it much less work for them in the long run. Tell them they just need to install and set it up with access privileges for you, and that you will take care of it from then on. Read up on using and administering wikis to reassure them you won't be running to them every two minutes with questions once it's set up.

--Jessica